ARCTIC SCIENTISTS RESCUED

A Soviet icebreaker punched through a wall of ice, heavy snow and wind on its second try to rescue scientists stranded on a drifting ice floe off Greenland, Tass said Friday. The icebreaker Rossiya failed on its first attempt to reach the North Pole 28 station from the south on Thursday, but swung around and "smashed a channel to the men in distress from the north," the official Soviet news agency said. "The ship's crew and the scientists are now evacuating the equipment of the polar station," it said. Tass did not say how many scientists were at the station. Capt. Anatoly Lamekhov of the Rossiya reported rapidly rising winds and heavy snow had cut visibility to near zero. The worsening weather also foiled scientists' plans to entrap the research ship Otto Schmidt in the ice floe and have it complete the research mission of North Pole 28.